Cavitation bubble behavior inside a liquid jet

The growth and collapse of laser-induced vapor cavities inside axisymmetric free-falling liquid water jets have been studied. Bubbles of different size are generated at various distances from the jet axis and the effects on the jet interface are recorded by means of ultrafast cinematography. The configuration is characterized by two dimensionless parameters: the bubble to jet diameter ratio delta and the eccentricity coefficient epsilon defined as the radius of bubble generation divided by the jet radius. For high delta and epsilon, microjets and droplets are ejected from the liquid jet at speeds exceeding 100 meter per second. The observed jet fragmentation shows similarities with experiments conducted on a liquid mercury jet hit by a pulsed proton beam, a candidate configuration for future accelerator based facilities.